In an opinion article for MSNBC, Frank Figliuzzi — a former official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — pushed for answers on the timeline of Republicans learning the evidently real details of widely touted bribery allegations implicating President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
In tandem with promoting the claims, House Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry going after the president, and some put forward the allegations as supposedly substantially credible. The source behind the federally documented claims was then indicted for allegedly lying to authorities and was linked in reports to Russian intelligence.
“First, who passed along this Russian disinformation to members of Congress? Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who swallowed the claims hook, line and sinker, has credited “brave and heroic whistleblowers” for alerting him that an FBI source report form, an FD-1023, detailed an alleged bribe from Ukrainian firm Burisma,” Figliuzzi wrote. “Whoever passed that information to Congress clearly had access to an official FBI document, a document containing information that the FBI had doubted for years. We need to know whether the so-called whistleblowers were well-meaning dupes or if they were deliberately carrying out Russia’s bidding. Second, did Republican Congress members pursue impeachment of Biden even after they knew Smirnov wasn’t credible?”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has declared the GOP’s Biden impeachment probe effectively tanked following the revelations around Alexander Smirnov, the individual behind the imploded bribery claims documented by federal authorities before Congressional Republicans seized on the story. The impeachment probe’s other focuses include Hunter Biden’s career in contemporary art, creating and selling art pieces. Republicans are suggesting his endeavors may be a part of what they’ve characterized as influence peddling by the Bidens. No clear evidence has tied the president to the sales, though Republicans recently sought an interview with a producer who allegedly introduced the younger Biden to an eventual purchaser.
